Listener Contributions

Recorded 2002: Chicago El, Street Music, Street Sounds, Sounds of Trains. Some of these sounds are already lost as society changes.

Morning chicken madness 01/04/2019 **morning crazy after feeding chickens (about 40 hens and one rooster).  This is one of the first recordings that I have made for an archive of sounds entirely recorded on our Piano farm in Northern California in last 4 years.

Love the sound of this little Christmas Tree Train!

This sound was recorded in October in India. Clay lamps were bought from the market for the festival. However, since they were very dusty, they were immersed in a pot of water to clean. Surprisingly, they began emanating bubbles accompanied with sound. They sounded like soda water after being poured into glasses. If you look carefully in the image attached you can see a thread-like string going from the lamps. They are not threads, but they are bubbles. (Note: A very quiet sound, but a great idea and reminder to all to listen to the subtler sounds of life!)

I love the sound of rushing water at one of my favorite rambling places, Hop Brook Park, Naugatuck CT.  After a very dry summer, this is just so refreshing to stop and listen to.

The Heights is Houstons oldest neighborhood-8 minutes from downtown-with massive tree lined boulevards and lovely old Victorian homes and Sears Craftsmen bungalows. 19th street is a bustling scene for art markets, festivals, White Linen Night, vintage shops, and a few bars and restaurants.  One evening in January of 2014 I parked at the west end of the strip and I stepped out onto a busy nightlife scene.  I realized that I could hear the flowing traffic at the intersection, the music and laughter from the open air taco restaurant, or the crowds milling about outside the ice cream shop.  It was the birds. Oh my Lord, the birds!  Grackles mostly, but I couldn't make out the others as it was just past dusk and that is poor light for IDing flitting flying shadows in thickly overgrown oak and pecan trees.  

I had to record it.   

I was on a busy and bustling urban thoroughfare, surrounded on all 4 sides by freeways, in winter, just a quick bicycle ride from a major downtown!  It also sounds like this in the morning from our front porch.  A help agent on my mothers cell phone once demanded, "Lady, are you at the zoo?"  

Our neighborhood is, indeed, a menagerie.

Inside the belfry of Marbletown Reformed Church, 

Stone Ridge, NY, the late Ron Mapstone ringing the bell

Water rippling over rocks in a small stream in the Red River Gorge in Kentucky, in April, 2007.  

Lake Huron near Port Sanilac, MI.

Waves on the beach, recorded on Lake Michigan in July, 2017

A campground near Lake Charles, Louisiana in April, 2008, near midnight.

For those of us who grew up in the 50s and 60s the sound of Mah-Jong tiles is a vivid memory

The recording was made early in the morning at Painter's Pond in downtown Deland, Florida.

During the Winter and early Spring months the pond hosts numerous Black-bellied Whistling ducks, occasional Wood Storks, migrant warblers as well as other species. Muscovy ducks, Sandhill cranes, Ibis, and egrets are all seen year round. (A really nice blend of birds and bell!)

Recorded on a road trip south to north through the Appalachians in April 2022.  The setting sun was accompanied by this hypnotic combination of Spring Peepers and tinkling metal wind chimes from the front porch of our cabin near Fancy Gap, Virginia.

I stepped out of the front door of our house in La Cienega, New Mexico and was greeted with a chaos of sound. Ravens were calling from the cottonwoods, ducks were squawking from the pond nearby, a great -horned owl was calling most likely annoyed by the ravens. And down the valley somewhere someone was playing mariachi music.

A set of rapids on the San Marcos River, near San Marcos, Texas.  Starting around 4:00 A.M on April 21, 2008 and finishing at sunrise.  At first, there is just the sound of the water in the river, then the birds gradually start waking up and chirping.

Denver Colorado thunderstorm near a busy street.

I was jogging on the river trail at night in Marietta Pennsylvania. I heard a sound coming from the woods I’ve never heard before so I had to stop and record it. (If anyone knows what this sound is, email us - info@americansoundscapes.com)

Ever since we moved to Maynard, Massachusetts 5 years ago we have had a few weeks in May where our neighborhood is filled with particularly rich soundscapes.  One of my favorite sounds is made by a tiny bird that apparently migrates the longest distance of any songbird.  The first time I ever heard its high-pitched, pulsating song was on our street.  Somehow I eventually found out that the sound is made by a blackpoll warbler.  Other birds that can be heard in this sound clip include our neighbor’s chickens, bluejay, grackles, white-breasted nuthatch, common yellowthroat, and I think a tufted titmouse.  This past year I did not hear the blackpoll for the first time since we have been on this street.  Hopefully it will be back in 2023.

I was on the back patio of our home in De Leon Springs, Florida. The wind was blowing strong from the West carrying with it the sounds of jet skis on Lake Dias and the sounds of vehicles from the highway not far away. The pool was gurgling in the background. All those sounds combined to create a soundscape that could not be called restful. Interesting, yes. But,sadly, those sounds are more and more dominant.